


Kindling Aflame (Casts Shadows)

by Lalagant



Series: Shadow of Leaves [2]
Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Background badassery, Butterfly Effect, Drabble, F/M, For Want of a Nail, Gen, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, The Other Lives of Nara Shikako, Warring States Period (Naruto), background politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25723582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalagant/pseuds/Lalagant
Summary: Companion drabbles/ficlets to "Spark to Flame" from different points of view.Nara Shikako is born into the Warring States Era as the daughter of the Eleventh Head of the Nara Clan. She casts a shadow like the forest canopy.
Relationships: Nara Clan - Relationship, Nara Shikako & Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Clan - Relationship, Uchiha Madara & Siblings
Series: Shadow of Leaves [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865824
Comments: 36
Kudos: 316





	1. Shikazu; on daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [this kindling, this fire (this long, long night that we'll see through)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538830) by [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate). 



Shikazu hadn’t quite realized how easy his eldest daughter had made his life before his second daughter was born. 

Shikako had been a quiet child, a deliberate child. She had cried rarely. She slept well through the night. She looked upon the world as if it was something she already knew. She didn’t fuss. She didn’t mind being held. She liked being read to. She picked up concepts and leap ahead in a way that made him proud to watch. This was his little girl, and she would lead the clan after him. A Nara ideal, fit for a lazy Nara to parent. She had made fatherhood seem _easy_. 

When Shikako was three, Amago was born. Amago had cried through the night or until she got what she wanted. Amago demanded to be entertained at different times in different ways every day. Amago wanted to be carried, spun around, or put down according to _her_ whims, thank you very much, and wasn’t afraid to make her opinions known. By the time Amago had mostly settled into a routine, Shikako had been five. 

Shikazu wonders now if letting his precious elder daughter escape from the baby’s tantrums at will for that long was the worst decision or best mistake of his life. 

Amago had been unusually compliant, allowing herself to be put down for an afternoon nap early, so Shikazu had sought out his elder daughter. He had spent an increasingly frantic half-hour searching before locating her up in the branches of a tall pine, scribbling away into a notebook with paper thinner than the clan could make and a stick that dribbled fine lines of ink. 

His relief was short-lived. She was doodling _fuinjutsu_. 

It turns out, after panic--entirely his--had run its course and explanations--mostly Shikako explaining things as if they were self-evidient--had been made, Shikako was not copying fuinjutsu. No, _Shikako was creating new seals_. 

Six days later, after the girls had been put to bed, he goes to the Clan Shrine, for a meeting with the Clan’s Chief Archivist, Chief Researcher, and Quartermaster. They debate into the night about the myriad of tests and demonstrations Shikako’s seals had been put through, which and how to integrate them into the clan at large, and what to share with their alliance. They each go home to bed at dawn with a jug of sake to drink. Shadows, his five-year-old had just more than doubled the fuinjutsu of the clan.


	2. Madara; fields of wheat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crop of wheat, summer heat, and two scrolls. Or, for want of another perspective and honor for an act of kindness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter that explains a lot and nothing at the same time. (This chapter will clarify a lot of the how did we get from point A to point B in this universe though.)
> 
> I'm going to be writing these all out of order based on what I'm inspired to write. Thank you for all the kind words!

Heat wafts along, carried by the wind, and stirring the browned stalks of wheat. Elder Nakano had said this year was too hot to grow rice, unless they wanted the stalks boiled in the field. Madara is glad Oto-sama had listened to her advice. The water-levels had dipped alarmingly in spring. The heat of summer had only made things worse. Through it all the fighting had risen conversely proportionally to the water-levels in drought. The clan grumbled about eating wheat, but better no rice than no food at all. The wheat means they have enough food for the winter, but the Outguard would likely need to head off to war in the spring, either for the clan’s own war or to fight as a proxy for someone else’s. 

Madara takes in another glance of the browned fields, slightly more golden than the brown of the dried grass stretching out past the cultivated fields, with his Sharingan active before deactivating his eyes and turning to walk back towards the compound.

Even before Madara steps into the gardens, he can hear Izuna arguing vehemently. 

“This is a jest at best and a slight beyond enduring at worst!” his eldest younger brother shouts. 

Madara walks faster towards the entranceway, but only Izuna’s voice carries in such a way. Madara isn't certain who else is involved, as he only hears more after entering the genkan. He’s standing on the tataki and changing his geta for his uwabaki on the agarikamachi when he hears Oto-sama speak. 

“The Daimyo is only commanding us to forge a peace,” Oto-sama says mildly. 

“The implication is that we are to make peace with the Senju!” Izuna roars. 

Madara steps over the shikii into the ima, to see Izuna on his feet, pacing the room and father and Hinote in seiza at the head of the room and next to Izuna’s abandoned cushion respectively. 

“The Senju cannot be trusted of course,” Oto-sama continues. 

“And the Daimyo is ordering us to make peace! The Senju swine would murder us in our beds,” Izuna shouts, stomping his feet on the tatami to punctuate the statement. 

“The Daimyo did not specify the Senju,” Hinote says, looking at the formal washi scroll in front of him. 

Madara turns to the younger of his living brothers, as do Oto-sama and Izuna. 

“What does that matter?” Izuna adds bitterly, “We are told to make peace so the battles to come next year do not devolve into war. Empty words so we must first be stabbed in the back!” 

Oto-sama adds slowly, eyeing his youngest son, “Do you see a way to obey the edict without tying our hands?”

Hinote does not look at Oto-sama but turns to look at Madara. “There is,” he pauses delicately, “that Nara-nee.” 

Madara remembers hearing of a mission gone bad, remembering Itagu already dead and buried a year, the frantic run through the forest, seeing Hinote in the arms of a stranger, and the fury and fear. He remembers being handed his brother, his younger brother, who was alive! Hinote who was alive, unharmed, and unafraid of the stranger. 

The silence is broken by Izuna, predictably. “What does your foolish little hero-worship have to do with anything?” Izuna demands. 

Hinote turns to look back at their father, before his gaze continues on to the hanging scroll of Amaterasu behind Oto-sama on the wall. “It shall be honor done for a debt unpaid and favor unlooked for,” he says, looking straight at Amaterasu behind Oto-sama, instead of anyone in the room. “An Uchiha cannot marry out of the clan, but we can marry in a kunoichi without a kekkei genkai to seal an alliance with marriage, as is traditional.” 

There are three disbelieving looks in response to this and an even more disbelieving silence. This time, Oto-sama speaks before Izuna, “And to whom shall she be married to?”

Madara gathers his wits, finishes walking across the room, and drops himself into seiza on Izuna’s abandoned cushion. 

“I would of course volunteer,” Hinote starts in a more placid version of Oto-sama’s mild manner before ending with, “but marrying Madara would be the greater honor.” 

Madara suddenly regrets taking a seat when he nearly falls over turning to gape at his younger brother. His younger brother whose glaze has not wavered from the painted Amaterasu while rearranging reality around them. 

Izuna snorts. Father is looking between them consideringly. All Madara can manage is a weak, “Nani?” thinking he has misheard. 

“She must be Madara’s age or older, and likely already married besides,” Oto-sama speaks, in the tone that signals he is speaking in his capacity as Head of the Outguard. “We shall do the Nara great honor, offering marriage to our clan heir, obey the Daimyo in flattering grandeur, and need not treat with the Senju besides. Should she already be married,” here he smirks, “the Uchiha Clan, of course, cannot be held at fault.” Oto-sama inclines his head towards Hinote, “Very well, we shall do as you suggest. You three are dismissed." He rises, "I shall compose the response to our benevolent Daimyo,” Oto-sama finishes with a sneer and walks out of the ima towards his study. 

Izuna makes a choked sound of incoherent rage before starting to rant at their younger brother, but all Madara can do is stare blankly at the wall scroll Hinote had looked at while changing the tenets of their world. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, so I originally was just going to leave the 500-word drabble, but I had so many ideas for this universe. I foresee sporadic updates when the mood strikes me. I usually waver between too much exposition and too poetic, so I'm using this to force myself to write short ficlets.


End file.
